From The Acid Queen To The Queen of Rock and Roll

Here we are, at the end of the road yet at the beginning of a new saga. Little Anna Mae has grown into Tina Turner. She’s paid her dues (and all her bills), she’s found herself, she’s found her voice, she’s done with Ike and his old sound. It’s now time for the Queen of Rock and Roll to take her place at her throne. It took some experimenting and deep soul searching but we eventually came to this point in Tina’s career, the pinnacle you can say. Now its been about 5 years since Love Explosion had came out and Tina didn’t have a hit. YET, she headlined her own sold out tours and still continued to do appearances on various television programs. Things seem stable until the legendary Roger Davies popped into her life and shook everything up. See during this time she was still doing the whole Vegas act. You know, all the glitz and glamour and showgirl themed antics.

Roger Davies came in and said “Sis…..what you WONT do is…” He made her ditch the act, fire her staff and basically helped guide her transformation into a Rock Goddess. Now after the legendary concert she had at The Ritz everybody wanted a piece of Tina. She recorded a duet with Rod Stewart and later went on tour with him as an opening act. She also opened for the Rolling Stones! Not bad for someone who still didn’t have a hit on her hands right? But something seemed to change, she recorded a cover of The Temptations classic Ball of Confusion

and also a legendary rendition of the Al Green hit Let’s Stay Together.

The latter was her first single on her new record label Capital Records, shout out to David Bowie helping the queen out!

Lets jump to ’84, in just two months Tina recorded the classic album Private Dancer and the rest was history!

The first single was a cover of a Bucks Fizz song titled Whats Love Got To Do With It(remember Tina is the Queen of Covers), it shot up to number one on the charts in no time and resulted in the Private Dancer album selling millions worldwide.

It even won four Grammy awards woot woot!! After the success of the album and a second successful world tour Tina tried the acting gigs one more time. Her next endeavor was the cult classic film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with Mel Gibson,in which she played the role of Aunty Entity. Of course Tina had to contribute to the soundtrack of the movie, We Don’t Need Another Hero and One of The Living were hits!!

Even earned her another Grammy! From there everything just went uphill. Tina really couldn’t do anything wrong AT ALL!!After private Dancer came Break Every Rule and even more success. She released the singles Typical Male (one of my top 5 favorite Tina singles)

What You See Is What You Get and Two People. All major hits, all notches on her belt. Of course another world tour followed and she broke a world record wth Paul McCartney performing in front of the largest paying audience ever. Following Break Every Rule came Foreign Affair. Along with that came the hit and her signature song The Best!

Lets fast forward to ’93 when most of my generation was introduced to Ike and Tina Turner. Her autobiography I, Tina was eventually turned into a hit movie titled Whats Love Got To Do With It.

Do I need to go into he details? No? Ok, lets move on a bit. The soundtrack of the movie was mainly made up of rerecordings of her old Revue hits and a few new original songs I Don’t Want To Fight and Why Must We Wait Until Tonight.

Again, another hit for Tina, although it brought up the controversy surrounding her marriage and early years. BUT ANYWAAAAAY whats next? She contributed the main theme song to the James Bond film GoldenEye.

Her next album Wildest Dreams followed the success of GoldenEye and like usual another successful world tour. Here is when I was shocked, I never knew she recorded a song with the great Barry White! The pair recorded the title track In Your Wildest Dreams and it was sort of a new sound from Tina. It was veeerrrrrrryyyy Barry White, meaning very smooth and sensual. We’re used to Tina being in your face and…..ROCK AND ROLL!! It was a cute sound for her honestly a real hidden gem. This is when Tina started taking breaks and who could blame her? Auntie was going hard in the industry for years making a name for herself so she deserved a damn break! The first break was short though only lasting 3 years. She remerged on the scene with thealbum Twenty Four Seven, releasing another hit When The Heartache Is Over.Now this world tour broke another record. It was the highest grossing concert of 2000. This would be her last official albums, all later releases were mainly Best Of’s and compilations. She did though come back in 2008 for her final tour celebrating her 50th anniversary in the business.

WHEW!!! Tina is a prime example of how hard work really pays off. She went from basically having no hits after her split with Ike, struggling to find a record label, struggling to find right material, to sitting comfortably on her throne amongst her peers. She would attest that her faith in Buddhism helped her reached these magnificent points in her life. Everything clicked and she ran down the road to success.She’s carrying 50+ years of in your face hits and achievements. There’s only one Anna Mae Bullock….only one Tina Turner!

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